Why An iPad Mini Will Crush Google's Nexus 7

We don’t know when it will arrive. We don’t know what it will cost. We don’t even know — for certain — if it will ever materialize.

But we do know this: Google’s $199 Nexus 7 is quick, slick, and pocketable. The fact Google’s 7-inch tablet has done so well since its earlier this month only ups the odds Apple will respond. And if, as rumored, Apple does launch a compact version of its iPad tablet computer, it will almost certainly crush Google’s Nexus 7.

Here’s why:

More content — The Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple has done more deals. Result: Apple’s iTunes music store has more songs. Apple can offer more movies: unlike Google, Apple offers movies from Fox. And Apple’s TV offerings include more than a half-dozen major channels that are absent from Google Play. And that’s a big deal, considering that once you own a piece of content purchased from Apple, it’s easy to move it to your other Apple devices.

More applications — Yes, there are plenty of apps available for Google’s Android smartphone software. Very few, however, are optimized for tablets. By contrast there are hundreds of thousands of apps available for Apple’s iPad.

Better distribution — Visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing? An Apple Store is just a few steps away. Apple operates hundreds of retail outlets in more than a dozen countries. Its products are sold at Best Buy and on Amazon.

Apple won’t screw up — The Google Nexus is the most polished Android tablet yet. It’s got a zippy four-core processor with a knack for slick graphics from Nvidia. The ASUS-built device’s round edges and soft-touch back panel feel more expensive than the device’s $200 price would suggest. And yet polish and price are what Apple does best. None of the devices it sells are clunky, and — outside of its line of Macintosh computers — it doesn’t leave its competitors a ‘price umbrella’ where it can undercut Apple’s product line. In other words, nothing will get in the way of Apple pressing its three other advantages — more content, more applications, and a better distribution — hard.

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What if Google has sold tens of millions of units just as Samsung sold 10 million units in the first two months of release, even before Apple’s iPad mini has materialized?

Google Nexus 7 powered by nVidia Tegra 3 ARM processor of quad-core and 12-GPU, is 2~4x times faster than Apple’s New iPad. And many games have shown off this speediness.

Because Google’s Nexus 7 has 12 GPU and quad-core, tons of games have been sped up 2~4x faster than on other Android and iOS hardware like Apple’s New iPad.

For example, if you play Bird Jump, the speed is much faster than on any dual-core smartphones or tablets, which means the difficulty level has been heightened and therefore the game has in fact become more challenging than ever before.

All hardcore game players like Google Nexus 7 so much, which will further marginalize dedicated gaming consoles like SONY PSVITA and Nentindo 3DS.

The handheld gaming market is huge with hundreds of millions of hardcore game players in total globally, so Google is supposed to be able to sell tens of millions of units only for game players.

I am an Apple fanboy with 2 iPads and 1 iPhone, but I like Google Nexus 7′s Speediness and Mobility much more.

And the worst thing for Apple to launch iPad mini is that it will slash both the total profit, earnings per share, and fat 45% profit margin sharply, thereby pushing down AAPL stock price significantly. Why does Apple need to change track from a quality business model into a merchandise business one competing with Google Nexus 7 head-on in price and volume?

Your assertion regarding the Nexus 7 is, of course, completely untrue. In fact, it’s silly. The iPad provides at least TWICE the performance of the Nexus 7. For example, PC Mag noted that in GLBenchmark 2.1.4, the iPad achieved 139 frames per second performance–well over twice the 63 fps the Nexus 7 was able to produce.

Why spout obvious untruths?

Beyond that, the Nexus 7 provides no 4G (or, in fact, any) cellular support, has long battery charge times, and lacks an SD card slot to supplement its puny internal storage of just 8 GB.

Had you stuck to commenting truthfully about the Nexus 7 alone, I would not have felt the need to respond.

In a word, Google Nexus 7 with super fast Tegra 3 processor has in fact made Apple’s New iPad obsolete in terms of competing power.

I have Apple’s New iPad and the original iPad, as well as a new Google Nexus 7 now on hands.

Tell you a truth: Every time when I download an app on Apple’s iOS AppStore, the New iPad stuck in the middle of nowhere for minutes sometimes half an hour if I download several large apps at the same time. But Google Nexus 7 is super fast, and you can download 20MB in a few seconds, many times faster than on Apple’s iPads. In a word, much faster than the New iPad and no stuttering issue at all.

Go try a Google Nexus 7 first and then make your own real judgement, not hallucinated by shallow analyses.

Ha, wow. Benchmarks do not matter whatsoever. The fact that you cannot easily copy a file to the NAND of a iPad/iPhone/iTouch is just comical. Your iDevice was obsolete when the S4 Qualcomm chips were released. I do not understand why so many people support a company that is 100% against the consumer.

Absolutely no chance of Google selling even five million Nexus 7 tablets. It takes a healthy component supply and assembly plant time to do that type of production. Unless Google geared up early in the year, there’s no way they can produce Nexus 7 tablets in high numbers. I don’t believe there’s any way that Google could have put in place that type of high product supply chain in a short time. I don’t care if demand is high, there are going to be continual shortages until buyers get sick of waiting. They’ll go to some other tablet instead of waiting for the Nexus 7. You must think Google can work production miracles. I say it can’t.

Besides, the Nexus 7 will have competition from a new 7″ Kindle Fire and if Apple decides to produce a 7″ tablet, then the Nexus 7 will get the short end of the stick. Apple will be the clear winner by way of distribution and supply chain. Apple is extremely well-connected. Economies of scale are everything when it comes to high production rates. Google isn’t even close to having it because it’s not their business strength.

The Nexus 7 is manufactured by Asus, and the iPad 3 is manufactured by Foxconn, a company that was, until recently, looked upon as garbage. Do you know who creates the components for an iPad 3? Samsung manufacturers the iPad 3 display. Imagination Technologies created the PowerVR SGX543MP4 GPU. Toshiba supplies the NAND…I could go on and on, but it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is: you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Google’s tablet relies on the same suppliers as Apple’s Ipad.

“What if Google has sold tens of millions of units just as Samsung sold 10 million units in the first two months of release, even before Apple’s iPad mini has materialized?”

That’s a very big IF. The Kindle Fire sold well for one quarter (we can only guess since Amazon never reported how many they sold), then sales tanked the next quarter. I hope Google reports how many Nexus 7s they sell, but they seem to be more fond of activation numbers rather than hard sales numbers.

By most accounts the Nexus 7 is a great little tablet. No doubt it’s the best tablet available for less than $249. But let’s check back at the end of this year after the rumored Kindle Fire 2 and iPad mini have arrived.

It looks to be a great year for consumers. Lots of excellent choices at very affordable prices. Even if the Google and Amazon products sell well, you don’t have to worry about Apple.

Apple reports earnings tomorrow and is likely to reveal that it sold over 30 million iPads in the first 6 months of this year. Even without an iPad mini, they’re on track for sales of over $30 billion worth of iPads in 2012 with net profits in the $10B range…from a single product. That’s about as much profit as Google will make this entire year.

Amazon sold 4 million units of Kindle Fire last year during the holiday season ONLY in the United States without so much waves of free positive headline media exposure. This time around, Google started selling the Nexus 7 tablet in three countries: U.S., UK and Canada. Simply put, the number of 4 million tripled would be 10+ million naturally…

If Google is good at something, that’s defintely marketing/advertising. Google first gave away 7000 Nexus 7 tablets to developers around the world, instantly creating a wave of positive media exposure globally while at the same time stirring up the strong interest of all developers around the world to transplant high-quality iOS apps to Google’s Android 4.1 Jelly Bean platform.

What if Google sells its Nexus 7 in 100+ countries at the same time when the supply is not an issue?

Google Nexus will take airlines market share from Apple for sure since Nexus is more than enough to be equipped in each and every seat of all fleets around the world for only entertaining purpose, which is a huge market.

Google Nexus 7 will take cars market share from Apple for sure since Google Voice Search is at least 2 years ahead of Apple’s Siri as a virtual assistant.

The size of Google Nexus 7 is perfectly used in a car and downloaded Google maps may take some market share from Garmin et al.

Google Nexus 7 will take a lot of market share from Apple’s iPad 2 in classrooms around the world since educational market is extremely cost-sensitive。And most importantly Google Nexus 7′s computing power is two generations advanced than Apple’s iPad 2.

The speediness and mobility of Google Nexus 7 make it a perfect personal belonging, which means everyone in a family, every room in a house, every car in a household, every employee in a firm, and so on, will have one, whose market segment is many times larger than high-end iPad. Its price also in a range of gifts and some guys have used one Google Nexus 7 tablet to propose his girlfriend.

In terms of total apps, Android has >500K apps while Apple has ~650K apps with more than 200K dedicated for iPads, no big difference. The only thing Google needs to work around is to attract top developers to transplant high-quality apps to the newest Android platform. But if Google can sell tens of millions of the Nexus 7 tablet this year, tons of developers will no doubt flood to the Android platform, which is no brainer.

“What if Google has sold tens of millions of units just as Samsung sold 10 million units in the first two months of release, even before Apple’s iPad mini has materialized?” In the 3 months since launch they’ve crowed that they have shipped 10 million Units – about what Apple does in a month.

@Mart “The Nexus 7 is manufactured by Asus, and the iPad 3 is manufactured by Foxconn, a company that was, until recently, looked upon as garbage.” You are aware that Foxconn also builds for Asus?

“Do you know who creates the components for an iPad 3?” Some of the components. The processor for example is manufactured in Samsung’s foundries but designed by Apple’s chip team.

“Samsung manufacturers the iPad 3 display.” Samsung manufactures SOME of the iPad 3 displays. Not all.

“Google’s tablet relies on the same suppliers as Apple’s Ipad.” Not entirely true. Nexus 7 is built using mostly off the shelf components. I don’t think there is anything in there that can’t be purchased at the component level. The iPad is full of stuff people cannot buy. The processor, the battery. Heaven forbid Apple have a monopoly on all the high grade aluminum going forward.

Once again you are making many assumptions. “10+ million naturally…”, “for sure” and “no brainer” may turn out to be wishful thinking. None of Google’s Nexus phones have sold well, so you may want to temper your optimism with this first Nexus tablet.

“In terms of total apps, Android has >500K apps while Apple has ~650K apps with more than 200K dedicated for iPads, no big difference.”

200K to maybe 1-2K tablet optimized apps is “no big difference”? That is a ludicrous assertion.

[200K to maybe 1-2K tablet optimized apps is “no big difference”? That is a ludicrous assertion."]

Your claim is not right. In fact, there’re more apps that can be run on Google Nexus 7 tablet with a screen resolution of 1280×800 than on Apple’s all iPads as a whole. Please see the following explanations:

Android smartphones have a market share of more than 50% in the global markets, far bigger than that of iPhones as a whole. So it’s natural that tons of apps have been built for hundreds of models of Android smartphones.

Before 1280×720 HDTV 720p became the industry standard as shown in Samsung Galaxy S3 and HTC One X, most popular screen resolutions are as follows:

1. 1024×768, the same as in the original iPad and iPad 2 2. 1024×600, the same as in Amazon’s Kindle Fire 3. 960×640, the same as in iPhone 4S 4. 900×800, the same as in HTC incredible 5. 800×600, the same as in Samsung HTC earlier models 6. 640×480, the same as in iPhone 3S …

All these screen resolutions have been around for years, which means most apps have been adjusted for the above screen resolutions, far more than what you mentioned above at a scale of 1~2K apps in total. Maverick estimates that the scale should be greater than Apple’s 225K iPad-specific apps.

The best thing is all apps optimized for the above major screen resolutions can run very well on Google Nexus 7 except for those that need some coding upgrades to cater to the fastest and newest Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system from past ones.

Right now, the industry standard is 1280×720, namely HDTV 720p model, which has been shown in a bunch of smartphones, such as Samsung Galaxy S3 that has been sold 10 million units in the first two months of release. By the end of this year, more than 100 android devices including smartphones and tablets will have this industry standard resolution, which means almost all developers have to use 1280x720p as their default screen, which bodes extremely well for Google Nexus 7.

In fact, running apps of 1280x720p HDTV 720p screen resolution on Google Nexus 7 is even better than its native 1280×800 one, because Nexus 7 uses software home button, which needs some space and 800-720 = 80 pixels give it enough room to show up the home button line on Google Nexus 7 tablet.

Apple fanboys, please don’t use lies to buttress your arguments, because more comparisons between Google Nexus 7 and Apple iPads will only show people that Google Nexus 7 tablet is more attractive than Apple’s iPad at the $200 price tag and that All iPad buyers have overpaid Apple $$$.

The only shortage for Google Play Store is that Google needs high-quality app developers like Disney to transplant top-notch apps to the Android platform. But don’t worry, by the end of the year, there’ll be hundreds of millions of android devices including ~4.8″ smartphones and 7″~10″ tablets with a resolution of 1280×720 or 1280×800, so developers can’t just put Google Nexus 7 on ignore.

Time will weather Apple’s competitive advantage away gradually. But the stock price is the leading indicator, which means before Apple’s 45% fat profit margin comes down back to the industry norm, the stock has shed by 1/3 to 2/3. Take a look at RIMM stock chart, you’ll see what will happen to AAPL stock price within a few quarters to go.

Bill Gates: Any great firm is only 18 months away from bankruptcy. And we can see many examples, RIMM, Nokia, Motorola, Xerox, Kodak, just name a few here.

I don’t deny Apple is a good company with quality products like iPad and iPhone, but most Apple’s profit comes from selling hardware, and more than half of its revenue and profit are from selling iPhones, which is extremely unhealthy, exactly like Motorola and Research In Motion years ago.

Again, it’s time for large institutional investors to shed their large positions on AAPL now. If AAPL goes to $1000+ as most Wall Street well-known analysts have predicted, Apple’s total market valuation would be very close to 1/10 of total U.S. GDP output. Do you think it will be possible that one company equals 1/10 of whole United States annual output? No way!

Please note that the Nexus 7′s Nvidia Tegra 3 processor is the weakest out of all the T3′s currently released.

“Beyond that, the Nexus 7 provides no 4G (or, in fact, any) cellular support, has long battery charge times, and lacks an SD card slot to supplement its puny internal storage of just 8 GB.”

The Nexus 7 was not intended to support any cellular service. The battery charge times aren’t actually that bad. In fact, physically, the iPad’s battery takes longer to charge (you can do the math yourself). The internal storage can be bumped up to 16GB, and USB-OTG is supported in SU.

“Tell you a truth: Every time when I download an app on Apple’s iOS AppStore, the New iPad stuck in the middle of nowhere for minutes sometimes half an hour if I download several large apps at the same time. But Google Nexus 7 is super fast, and you can download 20MB in a few seconds, many times faster than on Apple’s iPads. In a word, much faster than the New iPad and no stuttering issue at all.”

Anything between the appstores / play store is simply either software issue or your own ISP issue. There is nothing with the networking within the SoCs.

“For example, PC Mag noted that in GLBenchmark 2.1.4, the iPad achieved 139 frames per second performance–well over twice the 63 fps the Nexus 7 was able to produce.”

The processing power of the N7 is exceedingly high for a 7-inch tablet, even so to beat the iPad’s. The GPU optimization for iDevices and Android devices is different, so they aren’t great benchmarks.

I am only one Android developer but I can tell you in my experience most apps in development today are assumed to be adaptable to the phone form and the 7 inch tablet like the nexus 7. Although unlike Apple all apps are expected to morph to their form-factor. So I think the number of apps for tablets is actually higher than being discussed here.

I love apple products! I hope they come out with a smaller, less expensive tablet. I do a lot of work on my large desktop so I haven’t made the move to a tablet or even a laptop. But at that price-point, I would definitely consider it! Chase

Ever since jobs died apple lost its touch I expect apple to compete this year yes but it has nothing against the huge platform Microsoft is pulling together and google just hit their market as well ( google tv, windows 8 companion devices ect ). Only a zombie would fall for apples pathetic marketing today.

Valdez I shared your logic with my marketing class of graduate students. They laughed their collective asses off at you. “Here’s a guy who thinks he knows more about marketing than the biggest tech company in the world”, I told them. Most just shook their heads in disbelief.

Ya i gotta agree with this guy. As much as I love my nexus 7 and google as a whole, Apple is just too god damn good at marketing. I mean ya they’re still a dick company who sues everyone and their products havent really wowed me lately but that just shows how good they are at marketing. the iPhone 4s was nothing special but it still topped the sales charts thanks to their marketing. Apple tends to market an investment in a new lifestyle over a product which is damn effective in the consumer market (even though Google has been trying lately but hasnt pushed their products nearly as much). That being said I still think android is a more enjoyable tablet os and it is unfortunate but if an iPad mini is released it will definitely cut into the Nexus 7′s market. Lastly just a couple points to wrap up. 1. Asus has gotta get their ass in gear to keep up with demand or it may taper off in time and 2. You can’t keep comparing the current iPad to the nexus 7. There is no way apple can sell a tablet of comparable price if they put in a 4g antennae, retina display and rear camera…

The quantities that Apple sells belie your fact that Apple is just a marketing company. If the product were just marketing then sales would have plummeted by now.

“and it is unfortunate but if an iPad mini is released it will definitely cut into the Nexus 7′s market. ” What market? You are comparing something that has sold something close to 100 million units to a product that is competing against the Kindle Fire. Wake me up when the Nexus sells say 10 million units and then maybe you’d have something to argue with.

“ 2. You can’t keep comparing the current iPad to the nexus 7. There is no way apple can sell a tablet of comparable price if they put in a 4g antennae, retina display and rear camera…” Shame they haven’t already cleared the component costs with a similar product now? Oh, wait.

”Apple won’t screw up” – LOL every company screws up on something, for Apple it’s the price, take the iPhone for example (pay for the phone and then the contract on top). I doubt Apple will build a tablet of a similar size and it be similarly priced. They already have the iPad which is 9.7inches, what is 1.3inches difference? It’ll cut into their iPad sales as people will obviously opt for the smaller version because it is cheaper. They aren’t going to cut into their iPad sales as it’ll drive stock down, give consumers one option, take it or leave it.

Actually, Apple *has* left a huge hole where competitors can out-do them. The Android App marketplace isn’t it, though — that really needs work to make the apps consistent, so any app will run on any unit. That’s up to Google to fix, and I’m sure they can — I’m just not sure they understand the problem is critical.

The hole is all about hardware. Apple’s closed system offers no USB; no memory card slot; no IR or RF control for home theater and similar gear; no broadcast radio or television interface (these are literally pennies in hardware costs, given the presence of the rest of the hardware); No memory expansion; a huge waste of area around the bezel; no mechanism for holding from behind; no wireless charging; no solar charging (great use for all that wasted bezel space, btw); non-replacable battery; no fast charge (ultracaps!);

I could go on, but perhaps I’ve made my point. If someone wants to compete with Apple, all they really have to do is enable their users — because Apple’s closed ecosystem, zero-expanability, and fingers-in-ears policies have left this particular door wide open.

In the end, Apple will lose, it’s just a matter of time. They steadily lost market share to Android smart phones, and now they’ll slowly lose market share to Android tablets.

The reason is: CHOICE and PRICE.

There are so many different skins out there, you can completely reskin your Android device to meet your tastes. And then there’s extensive UI/UX works like industrial design firm Frog has done for Sharp Aquos. Manufacturers want to compete for consumer spending, and even just a slice of the market can mean good money.

It is why fans have Tag Heuer Racer phones costing thousands of dollars, and why Japanese fans have a Neon Genesis Evangelion phone, both Android devices.

Tablets are no different, except that people are not used to paying so much money for what is seen as more of a niche device. As prices drop, Android tablets will win out. And I’m not talking about those $99 Android tablets at the Walgreens store — those are fairly useless devices without access to a robust app and content store.

Funny you should mention Apple’s “better distribution.” I happen to be vacationing in China from the US, as I write this. Yes there are lots of Apple Store physical locations in major Chinese cities. However, just you try to upgrade an app or download an app from the App Store on your Ipad and you will soon find out that the global access is nothing like it is cracked up to be! At present I have 10 pending upgrades for apps that will need to wait until I get back to the US and forget about downloading any apps. Does not work! Apple offers no guidance for this situation as far as I can tell!

Whether this is a Terms of Service issue between Apple and the application developers or some manifestation of the Great Fire Wall of China or some combination of both, I’ll let someone smarter than me decide!

Google let 4434 GameStop Stores, hundreds of Sam’s Club megastores, Sears, Staples and Office Depot distribute its 16GB version of Nexus 7, how can Google’s distribution channels not beat Apple’s?

Most analysts on Wall Street are very positive on the AAPL stock price and even set a price target at $750 with some extremely upbeat at $1000 or more. But Samsung has sold 10 million units of Galaxy S3 and perhaps would be able to sell ~30 million units in total ahead of iPhone 5 release date. Do you still think those Samsung Galaxy S3 users will dump their newly purchased S3 in favor of Apple’s iPhone again while paying additional $200 for scrapping the wireless contract with Verizon or AT&T? No way. The more Samsung and HTC et al sell their own versions of smartphones faster than iPhone 4S and even 5, the fewer Apple would sell its iPhone 5 later, which is no doubt.

Per nVidia, by the end of this year, 28 smartphones like HTC One X will be powered by the fastest Tegra 3 ARM processor and perhaps 20+ more tablets on top of this, excluding Samsung’s Exynos 4 quad-core quad-GPU ARM processor and Qualcomm’s qaud-core will also come soon this year. In a word, Apple has been attacked by a pack of wolves. Do you still agree with most WS analysts on buyers withholding their money to wait for new release if iPhone 5 in October or so? Maverick think too many such impulse purchases solicited by Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC One X, and so on and so forth, will no doubt help to slash down Apple’s fat 45% profit margin to the industry norm for sure, making AAPL shed by 50% in no time.

Based on all these fiercer and fiercer competition, Maverick with a WS senior analyst background has warned large institutional investors that AAPL has a huge downside risk over the long haul. It’s time to cut your position on AAPL now.

Gee…using words like “Crush” just seems to fit in with all my friends who are so “pro-Apple”, that it seems weird….almost like a “cult” that feels threatened by new ideas….seems very snooty…

Sure the iPad is a better device…it costs more, but is over priced. Sure there are more apps, but Android is fairly new.

Sure maybe people would like to buy an Apple product, but they are priced out of it…by whom? Apple…so only those who can afford Apple, buy Apple.

Android is the best thing to happen to the market because it will force Apple to drop their “premium pricing” to more acceptable levels.

If all I want is a fast/portable touch screen device with good hardware, that can let me browse the web, check email, watch a few movies, and play a few games, and keep my calendar organized….at a price I can AFFORD, then I don’t need Apple and I don’t need a 200,000 app database to choose from….hence wanting/needing a 10″ iPad, or even a 7″ iPad becomes moot.

Sure if Apple sells a 7″ iPad at a good price, I may buy it, but I would definitely not be snooty about it and tell everyone my iPad mini “crushes” your non-iPad….

If you look at a 7″ handheld device as stand alone in a walled garden device, with walled in apps and walled out diversity, then obviously you chose the gated community of Cupertino for good reason and see no reason to change when you select a form factor that non-wrist-wrestlers can refer to as they walk-about.

If you view the world as sensory knowledge waiting to be made available to you with time saving access to what’s important to you then graph your interests in various social circles and find out the difference between a tiny device and big data on the cloud, supporting you.